Barcelona en Comú (Catalan for Barcelona in Common) is a citizen platform launched in June 2014[1] that is currently governing in minority in the City of Barcelona. Its policy agenda includes defending social justice and community rights,[2] promoting participatory democracy, introducing mechanisms to tackle corruption, and developing a new model of tourism for Barcelona.[3]

The spokespeople of Barcelona en Comú include former anti-evictions activist Ada Colau, Jaume Asans (lawyer), Gerardo Pisarello (constitutional law scholar), Gala Pin (social activist), and Joan Subirats (political scientist). Ada Colau has appeared in national polls as a popular alternative to current elected representatives in Spain,[5] and has since been nominated as the platform's candidate for and elected as the mayor of Barcelona.

Over 2000 people attended the launch of the initiative at a public meeting at the Collasso i Gil school in the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona on 26 June 2014.[7]
The platform launched a validation process in order to assess the level of support among Barcelona residents for its proposal of creating a united progressive electoral list to stand at the 2015 municipal elections. It set itself the target of collecting 30,000 signatures of support for its initial manifesto by September 2014.[8] As part of the validation process, it also held a series of 'neighbourhood chats' across the city.[9]

Barcelona en Comú's Code of Political Ethics applies to all individuals and parties standing for election under the platform's name. It was drawn up using a participatory methodology consisting of two days of open debate on 10–11 October 2014, and an online platform where the proposed document was open to comments and amendments.[10]

From its launch, Barcelona en Comú entered into discussions with local political parties including the Citizen Network X Party, Podemos Barcelona, ICV-EUiA, Procés Constituent, Equo, and the Trobada Popular Municipalista of the CUP to explore the possibility of creating a joint electoral list at the 2015 Barcelona elections.[11]
At its first party congress on 18–19 October, Podemos made official its decision not to stand directly in the 2015 municipal elections in Spain and to support local citizen candidacies, including Guanyem Barcelona. On 22 November 2014, the Trobada Popular Municipalista decided not to join the Guanyem platform due to disagreements over salary limits for elected representatives.[12] The following day, Procés Constituent confirmed its participation in the Guanyem candidacy.[13] On 6 February 2015, members of Podemos in Barcelona voted 91% in favour of joining the candidacy.[14]

Having achieved the 30,000 target of signatures of support for the Guanyem Barcelona initiative, on 28 August 2014, representatives of the platform applied to register the name 'Guanyem Barcelona' as a political party with the Spanish Interior Ministry. They were informed that the party 'Guanyem Barcelona' had been registered two days previously by Julià de Fabià, a city councilor of Santa Maria de Palautordera.[15] In November, Fabià requested a meeting with the platform in which he offered to give up the registration in exchange for a role in the coordination of all of the Guanyem platforms across Spain, a proposal which the platform rejected and denounced as blackmail. In their communications with the Interior Ministry, members of Guanyem Barcelona pointed to their pre-existing registration of 'Guanyem' as a political party with a public notary on 13 August 2014, and the false address given by Fabià in his registration of the name with the Ministry. The Interior Ministry rejected these appeals, upholding the registration of the party by Fabià, and obliging Guanyem to stand under a new name.[16] On 10 of February, the platform announced its intention to stand as Barcelona en Comú.

On 2 September 2014, Guanyem Barcelona initiated legal action against the family of the ex-Catalan President, Jordi Pujol, with the Spanish political party Podemos and for alleged tax evasion and corruption.[17]

Guanyem and Podemos claim that: "The Pujol Ferrusola family has, since the transition to democracy in Spain, been part of a business scheme that has worked in the interests of the family and companies close to them... It enjoyed impunity as long as Jordi Pujol has continued to support the parties of the current ruling regime (the Popular Party and the Spanish Socialist Party) as they rotate in and out of government. This is demonstrated by the shutting down of the preliminary investigation into the Banca Catalana and by the claims by the former anti-corruption prosecutor, Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, that he was ordered not to investigate Pujol by the Socialist Party".[18]

Since its launch, 'Guanyem/Ganemos' ('Let's win...') movements have been set up in a number of other Spanish cities, including Madrid, Malaga, Terrassa, Hospitalet and Seville.[19] None of these other platforms are officially affiliated with Guanyem Barcelona,[20] however, Guanyem Barcelona has published a 'Handy Guide to Setting Up a Guanyem' that explains the basic political and organizational principles by which any citizen platform which wishes to adopt its name should abide.[21]

Jordi Pujol

Jordi Pujol i Soley is a Spanish politician who was the leader of the party Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) from 1974 to 2003, and President of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003.

Popular Unity Candidacy

The Popular Unity Candidacy is a left-wing pro-Catalan independence political party active primarily in Catalonia, where it has political representation, but also in other autonomous communities in Spain it considers to belong to the Catalan Countries. The CUP traditionally has focused on municipal politics, and is made up of a series of autonomous candidatures that run in local elections. Its presence is strongest in Catalonia proper.

2015 Spanish general election

The 2015 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 20 December 2015, to elect the 11th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. At exactly 4 years and one month since the previous general election, this remains the longest timespan between two general elections since the Spanish transition to democracy, and the only time in Spain a general election has been held on the latest possible date allowed under law.

2015 Catalan regional election

The 2015 Catalan regional election was held on Sunday, 27 September 2015, electing the 11th Parliament of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election. This was the third regional Catalan election in only five years, after the 2010 and 2012 elections and the first one in over 37 years in which Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC) ran separately, after the dissolution of Convergence and Union (CiU) in June 2015 over disagreements on the coalition's separatist turn.

2015 Spanish local elections

The 2015 Spanish local elections were held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect all 67,515 councillors in the 8,122 municipalities of Spain and all 1,040 seats in 38 provincial deputations. The elections were held simultaneously with regional elections in thirteen autonomous communities, as well as local elections in the three foral deputations of the Basque Country and the ten island councils in the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Ada Colau

Ada Colau Ballano is a Spanish activist and politician who is the current Mayor of Barcelona. On 13 June 2015 she was elected Mayor of Barcelona, the first woman to hold the office, as part of the citizen municipalist platform, Barcelona En Comú. Colau was one of the founding members and spokespeople of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), which was set up in Barcelona in 2009 in response to the rise in evictions caused by unpaid mortgage loans and the collapse of the Spanish property market in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

2015 Barcelona City Council election

The 2015 Barcelona City Council election, also the 2015 Barcelona municipal election, was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 10th City Council of the municipality of Barcelona. All 41 seats in the City Council were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in thirteen autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.

Ahora Madrid

Ahora Madrid was a citizen platform of popular unity, formed as an instrumental party without organic internal life, in order to stand for the municipal elections of 2015 in the city of Madrid.

Málaga Ahora

Málaga Ahora is a citizen platform of popular unity, formed as an instrumental party without organic internal life, in order to contest the municipal elections of 2015 in the city of Málaga.

Marea de Vigo

Marea de Vigo is a left-wing citizen movement and political alliance active in the city of Vigo

Gerardo Pisarello

Gerardo Pisarello Prados is a Spanish-Argentine politician and jurist, member of the 13th Congress of Deputies. A member of Barcelona en Comú, he served as First Deputy Mayor of Barcelona between 2015 and 2019, with responsibility for Work, Economy and Strategic Planning.

En Comú Podem

En Comú Podem was originally an electoral coalition formed by Unidas Podemos, Barcelona en Comú, Initiative for Catalonia Greens and United and Alternative Left, led by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and formed in October 2015 to contest the 2015 Spanish general election in Catalonia. For the 2016 general election it ran as En Comú Podem−Guanyem el Canvi. Ahead of the 2019 Spanish general election, the alliance was rebranded under the same label as a continuation of the Catalunya en Comú–Podem alliance, the coalition of Catalunya en Comú and Podemos.

En Marea

En Marea is a political party and former political alliance integrated by Podemos, Anova, United Left of Galicia, and some municipal alliances that participated in the 2015 Spanish local elections. It was formed in November 2015 as an electoral coalition to contest the 2015 Spanish general election in Galicia. As part of the coalition agreement with Podemos, the name on the ballot paper for both the 2015 and 2016 general elections was Podemos–En Marea–Anova–EU. In July 2016, the coalition members signed a manifesto to constitute itself as a political party ahead of the 2016 Galician regional election, officially registering as such on 10 August 2016.

Elisenda Alamany

Elisenda Alamany i Gutiérrez is a Spanish teacher and politician, currently serving as a member of the City Council of Barcelona. From January 2018 to April 2019 she was a deputy in the 12th Legislature of the Parliament of Catalonia. Initially part of the coalition Catalunya en Comú–Podem, she was the spokesperson for its parliamentary group from 18 January to 29 October 2018. In October 2018, she promoted the platform Sobiranistes (Sovereigntists) as a criticism of the leadership of En Comú Podem. In February 2019 she left the parliamentary group but kept her seat. On 24 February 2019, she announced the creation of the party Nova.